


Roman holiday.

by orange_crushed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<i>Walking around in our summertime clothes,<br/>Nowhere to go while our bodies glow...<br/>And I want to walk around with you<br/>And I want to walk around with you.</i>"<br/>-Animal Collective</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roman holiday.

"Mooooony." Sirius is at his ear, lowing like a cow. "Mooooooooo-" he says, drawing it out, teeth almost against Remus's earlobe, "-nyyy." Remus buries his face in the clean laundry smell of his pillow and imagines that he is far away, fast asleep, totally alone, in a fantasy world where locking the front door could actually keep Sirius out. There is a clacking sound like pieces of plastic being banged together at random intervals. "Moony, I even learned telephone for you," Sirius says, accusingly.

Remus sits up.

Sirius is sitting on the edge of his bed, wearing jeans cut off at the knee and leather sandals and a faded t-shirt that proclaims him 100% Italian. His hair isn't brushed, and it falls in tangled black waves around his face. His hands won't quite keep still. He is holding the tan plastic receiever of Remus's muggle phone in one hand, and the cord in the other; he's trying to fit them back together and failing. He drops the phone on the carpet with a frustrated sigh and gives him a lopsided, nervously gorgeous smile. "Good, you're awake," he says. "I'm starving. Get dressed and we'll go get hot dogs, my treat." He notices Remus's groggily murderous expression. "Unless hot dogs for breakfast is against one of your moral codes."

"What did you do to my telephone ?"

"Nothing that the situation didn't warrant," Sirius says, and stands, holding out both hands to Remus as if to pull him out of bed. "Come on, c'mon c'mon!" Remus turns around and makes a noise that is, to his ears, embarassingly grandfathery. He stews. Sirius prods him in the back with one foot. "Hot dogs," he says, with feeling. "Hot dogs in the park." There is a grumble from the bed. "We can even go to the _library_ ," Sirius says, in a tone of extreme generosity, as if he were offering to buy the other man a pony or fill his bathtub with gold.

"All right." Remus rolls over and sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and connecting the soles of his feet to the board floor. It's impossible to resist for long. He pauses to glare at Sirius, if half-heartedly. "But not only because you said library."

"You have your pride," Sirius says, mildly.

 

 

This is their weekend ritual, whatever _this_ is. Remus's second job waiting tables makes Friday nights both lucrative and miserable. The money is good, or else he wouldn't put up with the stress. Saturday mornings he's dead to the world until Sirius rolls him out of bed around noon, or earlier if he can't stand to wait. Today is one of those days.

"Mmmfrilliunt," Sirius says, around a mouthful of food. "Ummageniufh." His nose is spotted with mustard. Remus sits beside Sirius on the bench, his legs folded underneath him and his stomach full of cheap fast-food and canned orange soda. The air is warm but not boiling, and under the trees it's perfectly bearable and even pleasant. He can feel the sun braiding patterns across his back, and Sirius's bare, bony knee jutting against his thigh. It is a moment of intense and mindless happiness, almost overwhelming. Remus inhales against the tightness in his chest. "What do you want to do ?" Sirius asks him, swabbing at his own face with a paper napkin. "Prongs wants to grill something later, but I suspect that's manly posturing for Evans's benefit. He always ends up on fire."

"Don't we all," Remus grins.

"That was only the once. Besides, we could get steaks. Think about that." Sirius sits back and lets his eyes glaze over slightly. "Big fat steaks."

"You ricochet from meal to meal," says Remus, chuckling. "I dare you to keep from thinking about food for five whole minutes." He pokes Sirius in the stomach with his index finger, and Sirius gives him a queasy scowl.

"That's easy." He tosses his proud, unwashed head. "You underestimate me, Remus Lupin. I have plenty of thoughts. Like, I was thinking, we should go to Italy. Oh shut up about expensive, don't argue, it's your fault I thought of it anyway. I saw a postcard in your deadly dull bookstore." He fans out his hands and frames a space just above their heads. His fingers tremble slightly. For a brief, hallucinatory minute, Remus sees nothing but the blue of the sky between Sirius's sun-browned spans; the blue of water and tile and the unearthly blue of sunrise. He blinks. "Can you imagine it ?" He can. "It's so far away. Almost far enough," he says, in a low voice. "Water and sand, and culture for you, and good shopping and the countryside and-"

"And ?"

"And pizza," Sirius says glumly. "You were right."

Remus laughs so hard he inhales his drink.

 

 

"Oh, you meant _now_ ," says Remus, the next morning. Sirius is standing in the hallway in front of his door with an enormous black duffel bag and a battered straw hat in his hand. He has brushed his hair to a shine and is wearing a clean shirt, which is distracting to Remus in a way he doesn't dare voice. "Sirius," he says, with gentle confusion, "I can't possibly go to Italy right this second."

"Why not ?"

"I haven't packed," he says, and mentally smacks himself. "Which is of course the least of my worries. I'm scheduled at the bookstore Tuesday through Thursday. And I'm at the Lion Wednesday through Friday." Sirius puffs out a dismissive breath through his mouth, and Remus's temper hikes itself up a notch. "I told you I can't afford it," he snaps, and continues over Sirius's startled protests. "And I can't afford to lose my jobs, either. Which, if you thought about anyone beside yourself for even a minute-"

"I think about you all the time!" Sirius shouts, in a strangled voice Remus has only heard once before. There is a deep silence in the hall. "What I mean-" he starts again, trying desperately to find the right track, "what I mean is you work all the time, and you never- Remus, you're my- and who knows if we'll have time again," he says, sounding angry and sad and as young as he truly is. "You know what things are like. You know."

He does.

He knows that sometimes, when Sirius comes to get him on those warm and lazy Saturday mornings, that the nervous energy shooting from his fingertips and boiling in his skin is not from happiness or anticipation. He knows that more and more, Sirius cannot bear to be alone, can't bear to go home to his empty flat. On those mornings he sees the unkempt hair and yesterday's clothes. He sees the indent in the couch and his opened fridge and knows that the war, the public one that they wage together and the private war that Sirius has always waged with himself and his blood, is going badly.

"You're so stupid," he says, half to himself, and Sirius doesn't even bother to act offended. Remus reaches out and rests his hand on the shaggy head, cups his neck with his thumb and palm, and tugs him forward. He pulls him into the flat, straw hat and all, and shuts the door. Sirius leans into him with some hesitance, his body stiff and embarassed but his face breathing eagerly into the space between Remus's ear and throat. He rests his cheek on Remus's shoulder, and Remus kisses his hair. It's the first time he's done that since they were at school together, since things were different. Sirius relaxes completely against him, and slips one arm around his waist. " _Chi mangia solo, crepa solo_ ," says Remus.

"Don't talk Italyish at me," Sirius says, subdued. "Just come with me. Please come with me." Remus knows how proud he is, how much it hurts to ask. To beg. He doubts he could refuse Sirius anything that he really needed.

"I'm hungry," he says. "Want to get a pizza ?"

Sirius laughs into his collarbone, and his breath is so very warm.


End file.
